The vote in the European Parliament yesterday (Tuesday, February 27) on the Nature Restoration law (NRL) shows a “widening credibility gap” between the institutions of the EU and “the real world”, according to one farm organisation.
The law was accepted by MEPs yesterday morning, with 329 of them voting in favour and 275 voting against, with 24 abstentions.
The law sets targets for the EU to “restore” at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems that are deemed by the law to be in need of restoration by 2050.
This includes agricultural land, particularly those on drained peatlands. EU countries must restore at least 30% of drained peatlands by 2030 (at least a quarter will be rewetted), 40% by 2040 and 50% by 2050 (where at least one-third will need to be rewetted).
The backers of the law claim that rewetting will remain voluntary for farmers and private landowners.
But the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) as said there is a lack of detail over what level of restoration is going to be required.
“It appears that the state is intent on effectively ordering farmers – whose forefathers and mothers had given their working lives to making holdings productive and viable – to take that land out of production and restore it in some vague fashion to a non-productive state,” Drennan said.
This, Drennan claimed, will happen “on the basis that we can cross the funding bridge when we come to it”.
“All details – maps, funding, rights, obligations, and timelines – will have to be negotiated in detail and agreed in advance of so much as a square metre of farmland being ‘restored’.”
Also commenting on the result of yesterday’s vote, the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) said it was “obviously disappointed” with the result of the vote but “not necessarily surprised”.
INHFA president Vincent Roddy said: “We just want to say to the MEPs who voted against this, well done, and I know it probably wasn’t an easy thing for them to do, but they have done that.”
Roddy added: “To the Irish MEPs who voted and said ‘we voted in favour…and we’ve got commitments’, it’s important that we see those commitments.
“Our concern, as we saw with the…land designations is that the impact of this…could be felt in 10, 15, 20 years time and we have to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“So we are now down to a point where we go to a national plan and clearly we’ll have a massive input on that to ensure that at least we can get the worst excesses of [the law] offset, with a view to try to get securities going forward to ensure this doesn’t do what we’ve always feared it would do,” the INHFA president added.
Meanwhile, criticism of the Nature Restoration Law has also come from political circles.
Reacting to the vote, independent Laois-Offaly TD Carol Nolan said the law “is a comedy of errors rapidly heading towards tragedy”.
“The passage of the Nature Restoration Law is a regulatory hand grenade thrown into an already chaotic and bureaucratic EU farming sector.”
“The principle of protecting nature is something we all support; but the major difficulties I have are centered around the means through which this objective is achieved and more specifically the impact it will have on farming families’ incomes, food security and the wider agricultural sector,” Nolan said.
She added: “This is clear evidence of a growing recognition of the enormous disconnect that exists at the heart of the EU’s green agenda.
“In perhaps no other profession are the voices of those working on the ground ignored in the same manner that farmers are ignored. No would suggest pushing through a law on nurses or teachers that is opposed by the vast majority of nurses and teachers in EU member states,” Nolan commented.